


The Hunter, The Beast

by unraelated



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Implied past Dimitri/Claude, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Those Who Slither in the Dark, Verdant Wind Bad End, Whumptober 2020, art collab, dark future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27255952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unraelated/pseuds/unraelated
Summary: For Whumptober, Day 28: Hunting SeasonYears after losing the war, Dimitri is hunted down by a familiar face.A collaboration withCosufor her Whumptober series, featuring 15 beautiful art pieces!
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123





	The Hunter, The Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags! This fic is whumpy, you've been warned!

The hunting party came at dawn. They were only a small handful of people present and some considered this group to be far too few, considering their prey. But their leader…

Their leader was a different story altogether. While he once measured himself as the equal to the other rulers of this land, his years underground had honed him, refined him, crafted him into the sharpest blade anyone had ever seen, the very best version of himself.

His smile glinted in the rising sun. Light refracted from the golden charms of his earrings as he tipped his head, his shrewd eyes already taking stock of the land around them. It was a mountainous wilderness, with snow-capped peaks and deep ravines that lead into rivers which drained further south toward the capital.

The _former_ capital.

Now, it was nothing more than another town under the rule of the Emperor. The hunter didn’t mind that as much as he had once - his time underground had changed him. Now, his only goal was the prize.

“A good day for a hunt,” he told the man to his left, who merely watched him with an instructor’s precision. Unlike the hunter who wore form-fitting clothing, cut low at his chest and sparsely decorated, this man was dressed as a mage, in insulated robes which kept him safe from the frigid cold of Faerghus. This companion wasn’t there to hunt - he was there to observe, to contain.

The hunter was their prized possession after all, and the handler needed to make sure that he completed the mission without any internal issues. If they arose, they would be mended quickly by his black magic… but it had been a long time since that was necessary.

“Your prey today is a beast,” the handler said, his voice wheedling and thin in the cold, “a former man who is now a mere animal. You’ve met him before.”

“Dimitri.”

Claude smiled when he said his name, not taking his eyes from the line of trees before them. “I knew him once.”

“That was in another life,” his handler murmured, and Claude nodded in acceptance as he reached for his bow.

“Another life,” Claude echoed.

And the hunt began.

-

Dimitri knew that he could not hide forever. It had been years since his defeat at Gronder, since he’d dragged himself to the woods and forced his injured body to heal. He would bide his time, he thought. He would gather his forces and have his revenge.

But - that time never came. His only allies were struck down in that same battle. No one would rise to his banner anymore, and he was… not the man he once thought he could be. And so, he hid in the forest while Edelgard cast her reign over the continent, while Claude disappeared and all opposition in the Alliance was crushed. He hid and never knew any of it, because he never spoke to a soul.

He simply _lived_ among the beasts of the wild, killing them for food, clothing himself in their furs, and becoming more and more like them with every year that passed.

It was only a matter of time before he was seen. Before an unlucky wanderer happened across his path or found the evidence of his living and reported it to someone who mattered. Dimitri had been surviving on borrowed time ever since he lost the war, but his instincts refused to give into the final submission of death.

Even when someone was on his tail.

He’d first caught wind of the hunting party a few hours after it began, when a few conversational voices had risen just high enough that he could catch them in the wind. He’d crept closer then, unsure of who it was, what it was, what they might be doing here.

Their leader seemed familiar, with his hair braided back tightly against his head, his golden eyes cold and humorless and his clothing in simple black and silver, with no country colors or flag to bear. He looked like an assassin, like a sleek and dangerous arrow, and Dimitri did not immediately know him, but he sensed a threat.

The hunter tilted his head after a moment, and Dimitri saw his nostrils flare before he turned, his eyes scanning the brush behind him until they fell on the dark shape hidden in the leaves.

“The boar,” he said, his tone pleased as he raised his bow.

The intent was clear as day. Dimitri staggered back and turned, scrambling to get out of the way of the arrow that cut through the air like a butcher’s knife.

It grazed past his arm. That was fine - it hadn’t incapacitated him. Dimitri had a knife on him and a small hunting bow that he had fashioned, but nothing which rivaled the power of the other man’s weapon, and nothing which could help him bring down the half-dozen followers at his feet.

Behind him, Claude grinned as he heard the familiar sound of movement in the wake of his hastily-aimed shot.

He had him now.

-

Dimitri knew these woods more than he knew his own mind. There was a bend here, a thicket there, a hunting trail he shared with a bear who was likely in hibernation now. He leapt over the roots of the trees and ducked underneath the thick branches with the effortless practice of a man who had done it hundreds of times before. He could navigate this mountain blind, if he had to.

His assailant did not know the woods as well, but he sliced through with a startling speed anyway, nimble and lightfooted as he darted from tree to tree, his bow in his hand. The hunting party had been left behind to cut through the underbrush. Claude didn’t care. He simply went through it, over it, under it, as quickly as he could on the heels of his prey.

Dimitri had never seen a hunter with such speed as this and pushed himself further, faster - if he could somehow turn, startle his opponent and get the weapons from him, he could kill him and still make his escape. 

And still, he was pursued. There was no way to hide from him, not when they were so close. What could he do?

His thoughts clouded. Was he slowing down? Dimitri inhaled a deep breath and reached up, his hand slipping over his bicep while he stumbled down a familiar incline. He was surprised to feel that his arm was wet, and when he looked down, he saw redness staining down his side. Had the cut from the arrow been so deep? Was he really losing so much blood?

No - no, it wasn’t _that_ bad. Then there must be another explanation for his fading strength, there must be -

“-poison.”

Even if he escaped, could he live? Or was he just now a walking dead man and the hunter was simply tracking him for when he eventually collapsed? Dimitri stole a glance behind him to see the man push through the leaves again, singleminded and focused on his prey.

Him. The boar prince, the strongest man in Faerghus, the leader of a country, an army, reduced now to simple _prey_. To meat. That’s what all animals were, in the end.

But if he was already dead, he was going to take this man down with him. He would be a cornered animal, fighting fiercer and harder until he was finally put down for good.

Further down the incline there was a steep drop, about six or seven feet of rock face that fell into a small creek. Over time, the creek had burrowed into the rock, under it, leaving - not quite a cave, but an indent in the stone, large enough to just barely hide a man. It was winter, so the water would be reduced to a trickle, barely a foot deep. It was something.

The beast changed his course, angled for the drop and barely slowed his pace as he sent himself over the edge, splashing into the frigid water below. The hunter stilled for a moment, momentarily surprised by the sudden change in direction.

Claude approached the edge of the cliff face, looking down into the water below. If the beast was still in the creek, he would hear splashing. If he’d crossed the lazy stream and went into the forest further, he would hear the wet movement of his clothing. Instead, all he heard was silence. Where had he gone?

“The ones in the dark will have their say,” he murmured, singsong as he reached for the quiver at his shoulder, withdrawing another slender, deadly arrow, “the ones underground will light the way… come out, come out, wherever you are…”

It had taken months to break the most strategic mind in Fódlan. It had taken endless hours of black magic and tests, woven together like a long quilt until Claude no longer knew his last name or quite remembered where he came from. The others that the underground had taken either died or succumbed so quickly into the darkness that their minds were lost forever.

But Claude, the hunter, the would-be prince, the leader - Claude survived being unmade. The beings underground had made him whole again. And now he was theirs, his mind trapped in the bowels of the earth until the end of time.

A hand suddenly reached up from underneath him.

He hadn’t seen the depression in the cliff and had no way of knowing it was there from his vantage point, but it suddenly made sense that his prey hadn’t run at all. Claude jerked back quickly, but it was too late - the hand had closed over his ankle and _pulled_ with all the strength of the beast he was hunting, throwing him off balance and dragging him down the steep fall into the ravine.

The water was freezing, cold like the water underground. His shoulder hurt from the initial impact from the rocks above, his hip hurt from the second impact when he’d been dragged over and slammed into the riverbed below. He could scarcely blink before _hands_ were on him, the beast climbing up his body to get his hands around his neck.

Claude thought fast - he always did. With no hands restraining his wrists, he withdrew his dagger, slashed upward, and felt the boar’s blood as it fell hotly against his chest, briefly soothing the cool sting of the water that his prey was trying to drown him in.

The blow weakened Dimitri, slashed right across his ribs, but wasn’t deep enough to force him to let go yet. Still - the dagger was a problem, and the hunter beneath him struggled more, squirming beneath him as Dimitri tried to force him under the water.

The steel bit into him again, this time on his arm. As distracted as his assailant was, _fighting for his damn life_ , he was still smart enough, still precise enough, still dangerous enough to drag his knife across the tendon in Dimitri’s arm, forcing him to relinquish his grip immediately.

With only one hand to try and hold him with, the hunter kicked him off easily, and the water made it simple to slip out from under Dimitri’s grip and reach for his bow.

His ankle was broken from the fall, which made standing difficult, and most of his arrows had been washed away in the stream, but there were still two left in the quiver. He reached for one then, frustrated at his failures, his teeth grit and golden eyes narrowed as he lifted the bow for the boar just near him.

Point blank shot. Easy prey.

Dimitri could scarcely move through the pain, his right hand useless, his chest bleeding openly into the water beneath him. The combination of poison and blood loss rendered him too weak to stand, and when he looked up, he saw the hunter preparing the killshot.

The water had dredged out the man's braids, made his hair rest unevenly against his cheek. His eyes were - unfamiliar, strange, but the way he held his bow, the way he rolled his shoulder back, the way he angled his hips was unmistakable.

He’d once taught Dimitri to do the same, a lifetime ago in the training grounds of Garreg Mach. 

_Try not to pull too hard at the bowstring_ , he’d teased, his hand brushing against Dimitri’s hip _you’ll snap the thing in half. Be gentle. I know you can be._

“...Claude.”

There was no joy in the hunter’s mind when the prey called his name. There was no satisfaction to be had in being recognized.

That single word spoken between them clawed its way into the hunter’s chest, tearing through the pain of his broken ankle and the biting cold of the water seeping into his clothing. His brows furrowed as he tightened his grip on the bow, swallowing down the ache that bubbled up in his throat.

Claude had no question of mercy, no thoughts in his mind that would allow him to stay his hand - only the faintest memory of a friendship lost and the deep, deep darkness of the underground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and checking out Cosu's incredible art! You can check me out on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/unraelated), and Cosu's twitter is [here](https://twitter.com/guessibetter)!


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